


Every hour wounds.

by Kaesteranya



Category: Gintama
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-04
Updated: 2011-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-15 09:31:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/159438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesteranya/pseuds/Kaesteranya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A not-so-average day in Sakamoto's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every hour wounds.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the 31 Days theme for October 27, 2010.

“Hey.”

At first, he thinks it’s a dream. He’s seen some pretty fucked up things, so it follows that he’d have some pretty fucked up dreams.

“Boss.”

Of course, “fucked up” requires a bit of explaining. See, for a guy like him, the usual definitions really don’t follow. Some people think that “fucked up” could be something simple, like walking in on your best friend banging your girlfriend or snorting wasabi up your nose. Other people think “fucked up” is some kind of Supremely Crazy Shit, like sex freaks or druggies or serial killers.

“What are you staring at?”

Sakamoto Tatsuma has lived through things and met people that go so far beyond everyone else’s idea of “fucked up” that “fucked up” only applies to what can still manage to surprise him, and seriously: there aren’t a lot of things that surprise him anymore.

“If you don’t explain yourself in five seconds, I will rip these out.”

He’s got to admit it, though. Waking up to your vice commander on top of you and straddling your hips and gripping your balls and looking at you with the sort of deadpan professionalism she wears to your negotiations with clients is pretty damned surprising.

“I’m up, I’m up! Ahahaha, Mutsu, you’re scary.”

She grips tight, and Sakamoto makes the sort of sound he never thought he’d make.

“You have a schedule to keep today,” she says. “Important clients.”

“But I had important stuff _last_ time…”

“And you also nearly blew up a planet last time.”

Sakamoto pushes himself up with his elbows, reaches for his sunglasses. Mutsu, she’s heavy and warm against his crotch and looks quite comfortable where she is.

“Um. I already said I was sorry.”

“Apologies do not pay bills.” Mutsu pulls out a clipboard from what looks like nowhere and scans the list on it. “The leader of the Jooishishi faction has an appointment with you this morning, then it’s the head of the Kihetai after lunch—”

Briefly, Sakamoto wonders if there’s something beyond “fucked up”.

“—is an exchange at the docks after… are you listening or not?”

There goes that eyebrow. It’s one of Mutsu’s most amazing talents, raising just one eyebrow.

“Hey, hey, how do you do that? Your eyebrow thing.”

She answers him with a fist to the face.

“Be back by midnight, boss.” She slides off of his hips, straightens, looks down at him with her special kind of disdain. “Try not to mess up.”

Sakamoto rubs his nose, throws off the blankets, thinks about the schedule. Six seconds flat, and he decides that looking for his coat is probably more fun than thinking right now.

 

***

 

It isn’t difficult, sniffing Katsura Kotaro out. For all the talk about the young leader of the Jooishishi being a master of disguise, his M.O. and outfits of choice are pretty easy to figure out. Or maybe Sakamoto just knows him too well.

“Y’know, makeup kind of suits you.”

“Do not insult me.”

Not the best way to kick off a conversation, but they’ve done worse before. Sakamoto only laughs, stretches his arms out wide before folding them behind his head. Katsura is three steps ahead of him, clip-clopping down the dusty street. Sakamoto wonders if Katsura’s deliberately swaying his hips or if he just THINKS the other swordsman is because of the cut of that kimono.

Mutsu would look really good in that getup, but there’s a special sort of charm in the way she bundles herself up like a space slug.

“So about the shipments you asked for…”

“Later. When we get there.”

There’s something really weird about hearing Katsura’s deep, battlefield rumble from an okama’s lips, and apparently, from the way admiring passersby suddenly look like they need to find the nearest gutter and hurl into it, Sakamoto’s not the only one who thinks so. The reasons probably differ, though. Sakamoto, he’s seen Katsura make sashimi out of people. These poor blokes just think that they’ve been victimized by a wandering homo.

The transformation starts when they reach the docks. Katsura’s pace has quickened, and he’s tugging at the hairpins and the scented silk of his costume, peeling away the skin he’s chosen to wear layer by layer. By the time they’ve hit the entrance to the warehouse, the luxurious brothel freak’s been replaced by a thin young man vehemently rubbing traces of white powder off of his face.

“Your crew delivered the last batch late,” Katsura says. “I do not see why we should continue this arrangement.”

“Eh, well. There was a good reason for that.”

Katsura looks at Sakamoto in a way that reminds the space pirate, quite distinctly, of his mother after he’s been a very, very bad boy. Sakamoto smiles, tries not to wince. An uncomfortable pause, then Katsura’s sweeping into the warehouse with a disapproving huff. Sakamoto decides to take that as an invitation.

There are eyes on him the moment he enters, sizing him up, open in their hostility. Unsurprising, really: he’s an outsider, a potential threat to their leader. The Jooishishi have, if for anything, always been fiercely protective of their own.

“Ahaha. D’ya think… maybe… we could, er, talk somewhere private?”

But the question falls on deaf ears, because Katsura’s moving through the ranks, talking with his officers, overseeing their work. And the way they look at him, the way they perk up at the very sound of his voice, the way any trace of exhaustion or frustration or doubt just vanishes the moment he’s in their midst…

Sakamoto decides that he doesn’t really like thinking after all.

“Oi. You were the one who arranged for this meeting, were you not?”

“Oh, that’s right.”

They’ve somehow managed to get to some private room on the upper floors from wherever they had started without Sakamoto noticing. Katsura’s gone in first – he’s moving, flopping into the seat at the other end of the room, sighing, pushing the hair out of his face, rummaging around in a box full of rations. He looks tired, like something sucked the life out of him somewhere in that warehouse. There’s something funny, though, about his eyes. Sakamoto wonders if he’s imagining things.

“Must you stare at me? It’s creepy.”

“But it’s kinda amazing! I mean, just minutes ago, you were a girl—”

“It will not be easy, finding pirates who can smuggle in the sort of goods you offer, but I am certain that my contacts can track one down in time.”

Typical Katsura: all work and absolutely no play. Sakamoto chuckled, and hoped a moment afterward that it hadn’t sounded too embarrassed.

“We missed out with that last delivery because our ship broke down on the way back to Earth. I tried sending word, but the tower at the port we were in wasn’t functioning well.”

“I see.”

“We’ll provide as scheduled by next week.”

“Good. We will pay you in the usual fashion.”

In that weird-feeling pause that follows, in between Sakamoto trying to figure out something else to say and Katsura biting into a strip of beef jerky, Sakamoto’s able to pinpoint exactly what was bugging him. Those eyes have a sharp and starved look to them, like they’ve been focused for too long and too intensely at something beyond the now. It’s the sort of gaze that determines everything, makes the present and everything in it – the food one’s eating, the drink one’s drinking, the men one’s commanding – only a tool used for moving towards the future. He’s seen it before, years back, in the trenches of a real battlefield, in the faces of people whose names he only recalls when he’s too drunk to remember that he’s not supposed to be remembering anything.

“We will be raided soon. You were followed.”

Sakamoto knows Katsura is lying; Katsura knows that Sakamoto has realized this. The space pirate plays along anyway, because Katsura’s always been stiff and honorable and incapable of telling his friends when they need to leave him the fuck alone.

“Haha, sorry about that! Should I—”

“No, you should not.”

Katsura’s turning away, working through another strip, watching the windows.

Sakamoto takes this as his signal to leave.

 

***

 

“I must commend you, Tatsuma. Your incompetence has exceeded my expectations.”

While meeting with Katsura always meant going through a whole range of possibilities in Edo and hoping that the man’s doing something close to the top of that list, meeting with Takasugi Shinsuke meant walking into a brothel or a club, flashing a simple black card with embossed images of spider lilies on it and saying you’re with Tsunpo’s party, is this where he’s shacking up today? If the answer’s no, move on to the next place. If the answer’s yes, it’s a quick hike up to the top floor of wherever you’ve ended up, to a room at the very back, where the One Eyed Snake himself waited.

These days Takasugi is never alone when Sakamoto comes around. Takechi Henpeita is always to the left, tending to the incense pot, preparing tea for them both. Kijima Matako is always to the right, sitting less like a lady and more like a boy, arms crossed, guns lying ready at her knees. As for Kawakami Bansai…

It is quiet in the room, quiet enough to hear the tiny little nothings of a tea master at work. Sakamoto doesn’t hear the faint strains of an Otsu pop song anywhere. Bansai isn’t around this time.

“You know, Shin-chan, no matter where I meet you, it’s like the room we go to is always the same! Do you teleport it or something?”

“I will give you a moment to reconsider the wisdom of changing the subject on me.”

Takasugi, Sakamoto realizes for the umpteenth time, is the one person who could make the simple act of lifting a pipe to his lips look dangerous. It’s the whole one-eyed thing, perhaps, or the way he moves, or the curve of that smile.

He’d be daunted, if he were anybody else. As it was, however, Sakamoto’s known Takasugi from back when he was even shorter than he is now, and heard how girly he sounded before his voice broke. Hard to be intimidated by a guy he pretty much grew up with.

“Ahaha, I’m really curious, though. I could use that sort of tech on my ship!”

Henpeita hands the first cup over to Takasugi, and the second to Sakamoto. Takasugi takes the cup, and smashes it against the wall. Matako gets up to clean it, and Henpeita brings out another cup, to start preparing a new one.

Better than last time, Sakamoto figures. He still has a nick under his chin, from where Takasugi put his sword up against his neck.

“You have had your moment, Tatsuma.”

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Even Sakamoto knows when it’s time to drop the laugh and drop the smile and get down to business. “The last batch was delayed because we had engine trouble on the way back home. Couldn’t send word to you either, since the tower at the port we were stuck in was acting funny. By the time we were back online, it was time to make the jump. Wormholes are dead spaces, so.”

In the pause that follows, Sakamoto knows that Takasugi is watching his every move, attempting to read him and see if he is lying. Sakamoto isn’t; he used to try, and it always ended with the body of one of his men in a ditch somewhere, with a copy of Otsu’s latest single pressed into his cold, clammy hands. Not Takasugi’s mark, not personally, but it didn’t have to be for Sakamoto to know that the man was punishing him.

For the moment, though, Takasugi is turning away, taking another slow drag from that pipe. He’s satisfied with whatever he’s seen.

“That must have been hassling.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

Henpeita is done with the new tea serving. This time, there is no cup smashing. Matako settles back in her original place; Sakamoto hadn’t realized that she had been hovering about, after cleaning up Takasugi’s mess. There is something eerily domestic about the whole set up. Sakamoto decides that this might just be a new degree of Fucked Up.

“Am I to expect any further delays?”

“Eeeeh, you can’t really predict that sort of thing, you know!” Sakamoto scratched his head, hoping that he looked as sheepish as he sounded. “You’ll get the next batch as planned, though, if all goes well.”

“Oh, good.” Takasugi positively beamed. “That saves me the hassle of finding a new way to hurt you.”

Sakamoto is tempted, in that moment, to point out to Takasugi that coercion really isn’t the necessary between old friends. He decides against it.

He passes Bansai on the way out – he doesn’t need to turn around and look to know who it is, for the flash of a black coat and the brief whiff of music played too loud in another person’s pair of headphones is enough of an indicator. It’s when he’s heading for the stairs that he catches a glimpse of something intriguing, right before Matako shuts the doors: Takasugi holding his arms out towards Bansai like a child. Bansai responding in kind, shielding his leader from sight with his own body.

Takasugi might have been smiling. Sakamoto might have also imagined it; the hallway was long, and he had been moving away pretty fast.

 

***

 

Somewhere between his last meeting and the time he was supposed to come back to the ship, Sakamoto finds himself in a very familiar section of Edo, walking up a very familiar stairwell among the many like it, letting himself in through a very familiar door as though he were coming home, not entering another man’s house without permission. He ignores the fridge, kneels down in front of the stack of Shonen Jump at the corner of the living room instead. The beer’s under the floorboards, right at that spot.

He’s up and out on the balcony of the bedroom facing the street, working his way through his second bottle by the time he hears stride in through the front door. Careless steps, the one-two-one-two lope of a scruffy stray who doesn’t give a fuck about anyone else beyond himself. A familiar voice, humming the theme song of the local weather channel and getting closer by the minute. It stops abruptly, though, once the door’s pushed open.

“Oi. Oi, oi, oi. Who the hell said you could come in, haa?”

“Aren’t you happy to see me, Kintoki?”

Sakamoto’s butt is introduced, toes first, to Sakata Gintoki’s boot, at around the same time that his face gets up close and personal with the floor.

“Do I LOOK happy to see you?”

“Ahaha, I dunno, lemme get up and check!”

That earns him a kick to the head. He’s not sure how long it takes for him to recover, only that not much seems to have changed since the time he blacked out.

“Now that you’re awake,” Gintoki’s muffled voice says from somewhere behind him, “you can get out of my house.”

“Let’s drink, Kintoki!”

“…Didn’t you hear me?”

“Here, have one with me!”

Sakamoto steps into the room, plops down beside the futon, where Gintoki has cocooned himself. He holds a bottle out to where he guessed Gintoki’s head is. The cocoon does not move. This is all right with Sakamoto, at least until he’s finished his fourth bottle.

“I met with Zura and Takasugi today. I didn’t think it’d ever happen. It’s not supposed to.”

Everything’s fuzzy when you’re at the point between drunk and tipsy, but Sakamoto’s pretty damned sure that the Gintoki cocoon moved, just a little – he could see a tuft of silver hair peeking out. On an average day, he might’ve poked, laughed a little, drank a little, poked some more. This hasn’t been an average day at all.

“Zura’s gotten thinner – can you believe it? And Takasugi’s like the man of the house, with his Kihetai… they dote on him like he’s their father, or maybe their son. Anyway, they were pissed at me. My crew missed the shipment that their groups were looking out for. Wasn’t my fault, but no one else can take responsibility for it, so. That killed any attempt at small talk, lemme tell ya!”

The bottle was empty; how had that happened? He’d get another one, but it’s become pretty clear to him that Gintoki isn’t interested, and drinking alone always gets him into a world of trouble. He was certain that he wouldn’t be talking like this if it wasn’t for the alcohol.

“Na, Gintoki… when do you think it happened? The four of us, looking away. In different directions.”

Gintoki’s hand snakes out just long enough to pull his futon up and over his head completely.

“Shut up and go home, you idiot.”

 

***

 

Mutsu slips into his room at around three in the morning – if she’s surprised by the fact that Sakamoto is not just seated at his desk, but also wide awake and steadily working through a pack of cigarettes while he’s at it, she isn’t showing it.

“You were due at 00:00 hours, sir.”

“I got held up.”

Mutsu closes the door behind her. Sakamoto takes another slow drag, exhales into the still air. This is the one hour on their ship where every single soul on board, man or Amanto or machine, is asleep. They ought to be as well, but instead, Sakamoto is enjoying his cigarette and Mutsu is crossing over to him, taking her hat off. Her scarf follows, then her cloak.

“How did our clients take the news?” she asks, as she crawls unto his lap.

“As expected,” Sakamoto replies, as he reaches up towards the collar of the top Mutsu wears beneath all of those layers. “Zura threatened to find somebody new.” Buttons finished, Time to work on that corset. “Takasugi was probably going to have me killed, at one point, or he was ready to do it himself.”

She’s sliding her fingers through his hair, against his scalp. She’s taking his shades off, tossing them unto the table.

“This is what you get,” she murmurs, right over his mouth, “for trying to do business with people who used to be your friends.”

And Sakamoto would answer her, but her lips are as distracting as the sight of her bare skin, pale and unblemished under the lamplight. He knows, vaguely, that she is using this to her advantage. He also knows that he does not care.


End file.
